Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 2 of 2]
With his Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader

By Benjamin Franklin

Page 194

of it; but does not extend to the making orcreating new matter, or annihilating the old. Thus, if fire be anoriginal element or kind of matter, its quantity is fixed and permanentin the universe. We cannot destroy any part of it, or make addition toit; we can only separate it from that which confines it, and so set itat liberty; as when we put wood in a situation to be burned, ortransfer it from one solid to another, as when we make lime by burningstone, a part of the fire dislodged in the fuel being left in the stone.May not this fluid, when at liberty, be capable of penetrating andentering into all bodies, organized or not, quitting easily in totalitythose not organized, and quitting easily in part those which are; thepart assumed and fixed remaining till the body is dissolved?

Is it not this fluid which keeps asunder the particles of air,permitting them to approach, or separating them more in proportion asits quantity is diminished or augmented?

Is it not the greater gravity of the particles of air which forces theparticles of this fluid to mount with the matters to which it isattached, as smoke or vapour?

Does it not seem to have a greater affinity with water, since it willquit a solid to unite with that fluid, and go off with it in vapour,leaving the solid cold to the touch, and the degree measurable by thethermometer?

The vapour rises attached to this fluid, but at a certain height theyseparate, and the vapour descends in rain, retaining but little of it,in snow or hail less. What becomes of that fluid? Does it rise above ouratmosphere, and mix with the universal mass of the same kind?

Or does a spherical stratum of it, denser, as less mixed with air,attracted by this globe, and repelled or pushed up only to a certainheight from its surface by the greater weight of air, remain theresurrounding the globe, and proceeding with it round the sun?

In such case, as there may be a continuity of communication of thisfluid through the air quite down to the earth, is it not by thevibrations given to it by the sun that light appears to us? And may itnot be that every one of the infinitely small vibrations, strikingcommon matter with a certain force, enters its substance, is held thereby attraction, and augmented by succeeding vibrations till the matterhas received as much as their force

Text Comparison with Experiments and Observations on Electricity Made at Philadelphia in America

Upon the table, over which he
hangs, we stick a wire upright as high as the phial and wire, two or three
inches from the spider; then we animate him by setting the electrified
phial at the same distance on the other side of him; he will immediately
fly to the wire of the phial, bend his legs in touching it, then spring
off, and fly to the wire in the table; thence again to the wire of the
phial, playing with his legs against both in a very entertaining manner,
appearing perfectly alive to persons unacquainted.

the bottle by one
part, and did not enter in again by another; then, if a man standing on
wax, and holding the bottle in one hand, takes the spark by touching the
wire hook with the other, the bottle being thereby _discharged_, the man
would be _charged_; or whatever fire was lost by one, would be found in the
other, since there is no way for its escape: But the contrary is true.

allowing (for the reasons before given, s 8, 9, 10,) that there is
no more electrical fire in a bottle after charging, than before, how great
must be the quantity in this small portion of glass! It seems as if it were
of its very substance and essence.

If much loaded, the electrical fire is at once taken
from the whole cloud; and, in leaving it, flashes brightly and cracks
loudly; the particles instantly coalescing for want of that fire, and
falling in a heavy shower.

For if it was fine enough to come with the electrical fluid through the
body of one person, why should it stop on the skin of another?
But I shall never have done, if I tell you all my conjectures, thoughts,
and imaginations, on the nature and operations of this electrical fluid,
and relate the variety of little experiments we have try'd.